Moon and Mars on 27th August.

[Kenji]

MUST NOT MISS THIS!


Hi everyone,

It's going to be a rare sight so remember - don't miss the opportunity
to view 2 moons in the sky -> 27 AUGUST 2003.

Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular!

This month and next month the Earth is catching up with Mars,an
encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two
planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is
in 2287.

Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its
orbit,astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close
to Earth in the last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000 years.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within
34,649,589 miles and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in
the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11
arc seconds wide.

At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full
moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of
August, Mars will rise in the east at 10p.m. and reach its azimuth at
about 3 a.m. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars
will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30
a.m. That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no
human has seen in recorded history. So mark your calendar at
thebeginning of August to see Mars grows progressively brighter and
brighter throughout the month.

Share with friends, children and grandchildren and with everyone you
know, as no one alive today will ever see this again.


Due to the upgrade of the forum and this topic is gone. Anyway, can start seeing mars tonight onwards.

 

[sprockett]

u can already see mars nowadays... a largish reddish star next to the moon...

it still looks like a star... too abd dun have telescope lehz...

if only mars could appear as big as the moon, that would be so cool!

b

 

[iceman]

the moon is quite round these few days ...
so come 27 aug, wonder how would the moon look like

 

[ivor]

Just wondering, has anyone seen the 2 moon for the past few days...??

 

[Starman]

MUST NOT MISS THIS!
At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full
moon to the naked eye..

I want to clarify that the above is not correct. I dunno who started this, but Mars will not look as big as the Moon at 75x.

I know because I have been looking at Mars at 222x

 

[shas3n]

I want to clarify that the above is not correct. I dunno who started this, but Mars will not look as big as the Moon at 75x.

I know because I have been looking at Mars at 222x

I agree. (although i have seen at only at 1x )
I really hate it when people hype things up.
Anyway, I like this website which clears a lot of misconceptions.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/news/index.html
Of course Mars will look 1/72 times the size of moon on 27th but you can NOT see a big clear disk with 75x magnitude.
I wont explain too much of optics here but let me tell that for telescopes 'resolving power' is more important than 'magnification' and reloving power depends on the diameter of the telescope. You cant see a thing even with 1000x if you have a telescope of 2 inch dia.
By the way, starman, what telescope you have? And anybody else interested in star-watching? ( i know singapore skys are not exactly perfect for astronomy). And are there any amature astronomy clubs here?

 

[frisky]

Count me in, but I only have a tiny C-90 (which uses .96 eyepiece....),
and I haven't been observing for a long time so now very rusty.....

 

[Starman]

I agree. (although i have seen at only at 1x )
I really hate it when people hype things up.
Anyway, I like this website which clears a lot of misconceptions.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/news/index.html
Of course Mars will look 1/72 times the size of moon on 27th but you can NOT see a big clear disk with 75x magnitude.
I wont explain too much of optics here but let me tell that for telescopes 'resolving power' is more important than 'magnification' and reloving power depends on the diameter of the telescope. You cant see a thing even with 1000x if you have a telescope of 2 inch dia.
By the way, starman, what telescope you have? And anybody else interested in star-watching? ( i know singapore skys are not exactly perfect for astronomy). And are there any amature astronomy clubs here?

Well, there isn't much astronomy clubs here short of those in the poly and Universities, but you can join the best of them all...the Singapore Astronomy Group. They are a yahoo group with 250 over members and still growing. Go to yahoo group and search for singastro. But you have to tell the moderator why you wanna join.

I am using a Meade LXD55 8" SC scope.

The singastro group recently held a Marswatch at bedok Reservoir and the response from public was amazing. So many people turned up. Actually there is a lot of pple interested in astro....just that they dunno how to start.

Well, here is one of my pics on Mars. Maybe it will get pple started:

 

[PhooQ]

u can already see mars nowadays... a largish reddish star next to the moon...

Yesterday it was a clear sky. The Mars was quite visible, but i didnt see the moon next to it. :dunno:

 

[West_ray]

Yesterday it was a clear sky. The Mars was quite visible, but i didnt see the moon next to it. :dunno:

coz the moon left liao ...

 

[ivor]

The bottomline is, whether can we see TWO moon in the sky... :bigeyes:

 

[Starman]

The bottomline is, whether can we see TWO moon in the sky... :bigeyes:

no..the moon is now in the morning sky.

 

[eskie]

i did quite a crappy shot of it a week or 2 ago
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/2696127/
sorry, only 3x zoom. quite sad.
and i think i shook a little
or maybe not long enough exposure. sigh

 

[Siddhi]

I went to Bedok Reservoir on Saturday night to check out mars through a telescope. Even with 200x magnification, it was very very small.

 

[shas3n]

hey starman real great image of Mars :thubsup: do you have a tracking mechanism for your scope? and what is this stacking thing? I think i vaguely know about it but was wondering how ecxactly you do it on your computer.
And again complemets for the photo of mars. Are those that polar ice caps? And thanks for suggesion, Will try to join sing astro group.

 

[Starman]

hey starman real great image of Mars :thubsup: do you have a tracking mechanism for your scope? and what is this stacking thing? I think i vaguely know about it but was wondering how ecxactly you do it on your computer.
And again complemets for the photo of mars. Are those that polar ice caps? And thanks for suggesion, Will try to join sing astro group.

yes, the scope has tracking motors. But the tracking not very good that day. Anyway, for shooting planets, you don't really need tracking. Look at my pic, at 1/30sec, you barely need tracking at all.

Stacking means take each images and place it on top of one another. The reason for doing this is to boost the signal to noise ratio. Noise is random, so when you stack, they can cancel out each other, but the signal will be enhanced. You do stacking by using astro software, or if you are good, you can also use photoshop. I normally use photoshop for image enhancement and astro software for stacking.

yes, those were the polar caps.

Actually images from webcams are even better. But not all webcams can be used. I will try again using webcam next time.

 

[roygoh]

I looked at mars at 150X and it is still no where near the size of the moon.

The next time Moon and Mars will be relatively close is 9 Sep.

 

[Siddhi]

Starman, thats a lot of magnification !! How much magnification did you use ? Like I said before, I came to Marswatch and even on 200x Mars was so tiny.

 

[Starman]

Starman, thats a lot of magnification !! How much magnification did you use ? Like I said before, I came to Marswatch and even on 200x Mars was so tiny.

I used 667x (167X on the scope and 4X optical Zoom on the camera)

 

[Kenji]

Not taken from me